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Hadfield / Canadian Space Agency via @Cmdr_Hadfield
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield snapped this photo of Earth from space from the International Space Station during the Expedition 34 mission. The January 2013 photo shows Newfoundland and Labrador from orbit.
By Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience
As a blizzard makes its way toward the Northeast, numbers suggest the world is actually pretty hot, with temperatures across the globe making last month the second-warmest January in the past 35 years.
Globally, January had an average temperature that was 0.92 degrees Fahrenheit (0.51 degrees Celsius) above a 30-year baseline average, said John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.
This January takes a back seat only to January 2010, with January 1998 coming in as the third warmest during this period.
During the past month, the globe's coldest spot centered on Russia, near the town of Nyagan, where temperatures averaged about 4.5 degrees F (2.51 degrees C) below seasonal norms there. Meanwhile, as compared with seasonal norms, the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard (located north of Norway and east of Greenland) showed the warmest temps in January. There, the thermometer rose some 7.4 degrees F (4.1 degrees C) above January norms.
The global numbers are part of an ongoing project between the University of Alabama, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA. Instruments aboard NOAA and NASA satellites measure the temperature of the atmosphere from Earth's surface to an altitude of about 5 miles (8 kilometers) above sea level. Once processed, the monthly temperature data is placed in a publicly available computer file.
January heat follows right on the heels of the warmest year on recordin the contiguous United States, stretching back to the 1880s, a record that NOAA scientists announced last month.
Every contiguous U.S. state had an above-average annual temperature for 2012, with 19 states boasting a record warm yearand an additional 26 states experiencing one of their 10 warmest years, NOAA's National Climate Data Center (NCDC) reported.
As for what's behind the warming trends, "It's a combination of longer-term trends and local effects or regional effects like the drought," NCDC climatologist Jake Crouch told LiveScience in November, referring to the widespread drought conditions in the United States in 2012.
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Leave a Comment:
Second-warmest?? I guess global warming's over, rev up the ole gas-guzzlers and leave all the lights on!!
Second warmest - right behind 2010.
Do people who refuse to accept the science of climate change really expect that each and every year will be warmer than the previous one? Each and every month? Day?
Here's an interesting nugget: each and every decade since 1980 has been warmer than the previous one. Will that suffice?
*laughs* He's just being silly PR. He's like Knight who say Ni or Sirlafalot except more of the satirical variety.
Mitchell
I hate when that happens, Mitchell - I fall for it every time...
Apologies, Doug.
It's certainly been warm here on the Front Range. We've had a high pressure ridge parked over us all winter, blocking or diverting storms and cold air masses. We did get a brief cold spell over Christmas, a touch of snow here and there, but mostly it's been a continuation of the summer drought from last year. Going to be a lot of dead pines soon, I think.
No worries, Physicist. I could have sworn that you knew I was kidding, and were just underscoring.
"He's like Knight who say Ni or Sirlafalot except more of the satirical variety."
no no no! please don't compare me to the master! doug rules! we are not worthy! we cargo-cult worship his posts! doug glows in the dark and levitates! his words are preserved in the holy vine for all to read and learn from! fish and deniers fear him! women and beer worship him!
in other words, i think that doug is ok.
*laughs*
Ni is commenting on Doug? This is a nightmare!
We must keep those two as separated as possible! If they come in contact - KABOOM! E=mc^2 baby!
Seriously....warmest - try living in Minnesota!
Then they probably weren't talking about Minnesota
What are these dirty NUMBERS? I can trump this peer-reviewed scientific data with my story about how cooooooooold it was at MY house this year. You silly liberals obviously didn't come check my house. How can your "science" explain that?
How ridiculous. They should just ask YOU next time instead of performing any of those silly scientific tests.
Was being sarcastic bud
I got the joke Frugal
It was pretty cold here and it proves don't rely on global warming people to predict the weather.
They don't. They predict climate... and they are called Climate Scientists for that reason.
If anything climate change makes the forecasters' jobs harder. Because the predictability that has been present for a century changes.
80 degrees today just barely into February. Summer will probably be brutal!
Warm and sunny in Colorado. Snowpack is only 72 percent of normal, probably water restrictions in the works, pine beetles on the decline but spruce beetles on the upswing. Golf courses open, tee shirt weather in January and February.Fires will be a problem this year, again. Climate scientists have got it correct, a lot of problems on the way.
Lodgepole beetle kill is on the decline, mostly because so many of them are already dead, but the beetles have been moving into Ponderosa pines, which is mostly what I have in my area.